My roommate is in the process of ordering a new Wings container. And they have go to have the worst customer service ever. When he calls they act like its a complete inconvience to answer the few questions he has. If it werent for getting 40% off he would have cancelled his order. i got a infinity rig and they were always willing to answer any questions i had and were just overly AWESOME! The guy at wings i think his name is Rick even hung up on my roommate. Has anybody else had a similar experience?

Rick took great care of me. He answered the dozens of questions I had, and accommodated a few special requests at no charge. Nothing but A+ customer service and friendly communication regarding the status of my order.

Ive had awesome customer service dealing with Sunrise. 2 rigs and ive been happy with everything. Hell they even gave me a factory tour and did some rigging for free for me. Ricks always answered my questions promptly.

Why is your friend calling the manufacturer? He should be calling his dealer. And why are you posting for your friend? If he has something to say on an international forum that the whole world needs to hear, let him say it.

look im the roommate and i asked him to post cause i have never posted but yes everything he did say is completely true yes my questions were answered but with attitude and i did call my dzo who ordered for me with questions as well but im the one spending the money so i feel i should be able to call the ppl im spending thousands of dollars with. im not calling all the time. this is my first rig and im new to this whole process and i just want to be reassured that every thing is right and the way i want it. i dont feel like i deserve attitude when i call. if i had todo it all over i wouldnt have chosen Wings. Im just frustrated with the situation. i dont feel like im asking too much. and for him to just hang up on me in mid sentence when i was asking my question is completely unacceptable.

i did call my dzo who ordered for me with questions as well but im the one spending the money so i feel i should be able to call the ppl im spending thousands of dollars with

And that's where you're wrong. Your dealer is the one you should be directing all of your questions and concerns to, that's their purpose in the transaction.

Ask yourself this, how many rigs would you guess your DZO currently has on order (for customers)? At least one (yours) and maybe a handful more, let's say 5 in total. So if everyone of those customers has a question, he has to take 5 calls to solve all the problems.

How many rigs do you think Sunrise currently has orders for? Let's just guess 75 to 100 at any one time. What would happen if they all called the factory with questions? When would the rigs get built?

This is why dealers exist, and factories sell them stuff at a discount, they're the 'experts' who are there to represent and market their products to customers in the field.

If you buy a new car, and have a problem with it, where do you go? Back to the dealer. You don't call Ford HQ in Detroit, you work with the dealer who takes care of the problem.

The relationship between skydiving gear manufacturers, dealers, and customers has some additional issues.

The Ford dealer probably didn't become a dealership just by buying one Ford for himself and selling a couple others to friends.

Some dealers in skydiving gear do big volume and know a lot about the gear and perhaps what is going on at the factory, while others (through no fault of their own) sell the occasional item and can help with basic questions about the order form, but that's about all.

As for the guy this thread is about, I don't know the kind of questions he had or his attitude on the phone, but I can see that he could be thinking that he got better service the last time he bought something worth $50 at a store.

Who knows what the situation really was here, how it came to be that a conversation between a customer and manufacturer went so badly. Did he not get the answers he wanted from the dealer? Did the company suggest that the questions were basic enough that he should talk to his dealer again? Who knows.

FYI, the skydivewings site says:

Quote:

Our wings products are sold through our dealers only. The only time we sell direct to the public is with one of our 50% off specials (i.e. gift certificates, or 50% off monthly specials that we may run). Please see a list of our dealers world wide. Even if you qualify for a 50% off special we still suggest that you contact a dealer as they are usually able to assist you hands on with questions

That suggests that if you have a coupon, they'll talk to you, even if they like you to go through a dealer.

look im the roommate and i asked him to post cause i have never posted but yes everything he did say is completely true yes my questions were answered but with attitude and i did call my dzo who ordered for me with questions as well but im the one spending the money so i feel i should be able to call the ppl im spending thousands of dollars with. im not calling all the time. this is my first rig and im new to this whole process and i just want to be reassured that every thing is right and the way i want it. i dont feel like i deserve attitude when i call. if i had todo it all over i wouldnt have chosen Wings. Im just frustrated with the situation. i dont feel like im asking too much. and for him to just hang up on me in mid sentence when i was asking my question is completely unacceptable.

I am guessing that you may have been bugging the hell out of the manufacturer who you never ordered directly from (for the reasons described earlier in the thread).

I obviously only know your side of the story, but even with that I am not seeing much to feel bad about. Sounds like you kept calling them to micromanage your rig build, and we all know how everyone likes micromanagement, especially by people not directly involved in the transaction.

sorry,but knowing rick personally, something tells me that we are not getting the full story here. i never would have imagined that rick would hang up on a customer no matter what.

all i can say is i been dealing with Rick Moetle for many many years and he is one of the best customer service guys that i have ever met!!! i dealt with him in sunpath and with wings and he always gave me excellent service and got things done for me in a hurry if i needed it.

The only "bad" experience I had with Sunrise is when I asked them to send me pictures of my rig in construction, they said they would have to ask the UPS guy (or whichever shipment company they use) to come back with the box which was transporting my rig

Well to be honest I have only ever had good dealing with Wings when dealing with them that was a number of years ago. From across the pond I got a really good response. Every time could be different but when i spoke/ emailed them I always got a quick and polite answer to my requests.

So to be honest quite surprised at that the wings thread was god damn long enough and well the amount of people buying from them. Must have meant that their customer service must have been ok then ?.

Rick's track recorded is pretty impressive. I ordered my Rig thru him via a 50% off coupon myself. The guy had just got back from vacation, was swamped with work, and still managed to curtail to my needs. Granted, I knew exactly what I wanted, am a Rigger, and only had minor alterations here n' there.

I get the feeling that your friend PurpleHeart is the one to blame. New to the sport, nervous about money, etc. ='s a customer that should really just use his dealer instead of take matters into his own hands...

When I ordered my rig there was some confusion about how to get a correct measurement from the instructions on the chart. By "confusion" I mean I interpreted the instructions incorrectly and told the person who measured me the wrong thing. The rig didn't fit. I sent it back so they could look at it to see what kind of remedy there was and they ended up building me a new harness. Through the process they were just plain cool. Each and every time I spoke with them they were professional, VERY knowledgable and easy to talk to. A lot of companies could take lessons from these guys.

I have a feeling that there might be more to this story.

In reply to:

look im the roommate and i asked him to post cause i have never posted but yes everything he did say is completely true yes my questions were answered but with attitude and i did call my dzo who ordered for me with questions as well but im the one spending the money so i feel i should be able to call the ppl im spending thousands of dollars with. im not calling all the time. this is my first rig and im new to this whole process and i just want to be reassured that every thing is right and the way i want it. i dont feel like i deserve attitude when i call. if i had todo it all over i wouldnt have chosen Wings. Im just frustrated with the situation. i dont feel like im asking too much. and for him to just hang up on me in mid sentence when i was asking my question is completely unacceptable.

..... amazing service every time from whoever was there at the time. Ankie was Awesome. RIck is Righteous! Anne is Amazing... hell, even Aggie in his brief sojourn was damn good too.

I have had customers change their minds long after gear has gone into production and Sunrise casually step up to the mark and change things for them at their own cost just because the customer wanted things a certain way.

I have had rigs that have had to go back.. W8-2 ext with a problem with the #3 flap not sitting quite right and the flap popping out sometimes in free-fly. I sent them from AUSTRALIA and on the Eleventh day I had them back!! You do the maths but it strikes me that they provided a pretty good customer service... that was my rig 8 years ago and the extremely high level of customer service I got made me want to share that with others.

There are lots of good manufacturers out there and as a full time rigger who deals with a lot of them regularly I reckon most of the problems I have seen between people and the manufacturers tends to come down to the person not taking the time to understand what they are dealing with.

..... amazing service every time from whoever was there at the time. Ankie was Awesome. RIck is Righteous! Anne is Amazing... hell, even Aggie in his brief sojourn was damn good too.

As a dealer, you should have that sort of outstanding servive.

As a dealer, it's also your job to take customer calls with regards to orders/changes/complaints/concerns/etc, and either handle them yourself, or get the problem distilled down to it's core, and call the factory yourself to take of the problem quickly, efficiently, and on a 'professional' level, with one Wings expert talking to another.

I don't recall an option on the Wings order form where you get a free education on the in's and out's of ordering and building a rig. The jumper in question here seems to think he is due that, and wants to blame the manufacturer for not providing something they never promised in the first place.